Page 135 of With Wing And Claw

So many ways to fail, and she no longer even had the strength left to get back to her feet, to pull herself together, to fight.

‘Naxi!’ It was pathetic, her voice – the desperate cry of a drowning creature fighting for air. It was all she could do. ‘Naxi, please just talk to me! Youhaveto talk to me! You said— You bargained not to harm me, and you’re … you’re …’

You’re harming me.

She did not manage to speak the words as sickening suspicion rose.

The world was a blur. The floor swayed beneath her knees. But the inside of her arm was crystal clear when she opened her eyes and forced herself to look down, a vision painted in razor-sharp colours – dark skin, blood-streaked palm, and only a single, purple bargain mark lodged inside the hollow of her wrist.

No more pink.

If you decide to leave the Crimson Court for whatever reason …

The bargain had been voided.

She folded over on the cold, hard floor, clutched her arm against her chest, and bawled like a lost, abandoned child.

Chapter 28

Demons didn’t cry.

Then again, Naxi had never been that good at being a demon, and her tears didn’t give a damn whose eyes they were pouring from – just that they wouldn’t,couldn’tstop. The gallery was a maze of broken shapes around her. Shards of glass crunched beneath her linen-wrapped feet. The tidal wave of Thysandra’s emotions was trying to drag her under with every step, and by the time she reached the door on the far side of the hall, she felt like she was struggling through knee-deep mud just to keep going – and yet she walked.

The alternative was running back.

The alternative was making that gods-damned bargain and resigning herself to being, once again, the monster lurking beneath everyone’s bed.

Which she shouldn’t care about! Being frightening was nothing new! And yet the tears kept coming and coming and coming as she slammed the door behind her, tore the linen off her feet, and staggered on through the deserted academy halls – because shealwayshad to be the frightening one, whether she wanted to or not, and Thysandra…

Thysandra should have been different.

For Thysandra, she had tried so very hard to besafe.

And still it was not enough. Still it ended with the same tired old story. She shouldn’t care, she shouldn’t care, she shouldn’tcare, yet demon heart or no, it hurt like hell.You ran from the ones who relied on you before, and the worst thing of all was that it was true – she had taken her revenge for the destruction of Mirova, lived with the shame and the regret for three hundred years, and still it was entirely, undeniably true.

Had she wanted to leave the humans to their own devices?

If she hadn’t, why in the world had she said she did?

Didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She was a demon, and she could run and never look back the way all demons did. All she had to do was find anyone with a ship, scare them into offering her passage to the Golden Court, then find an alf to return her to her friends – not a nice way of going about it, perhaps, but who cared about nice?

She was a demon.Shesure as hell didn’t.

If the world insisted on treating her like some child-eating, heartbreaking menace, she might as well lean into it.

Down the stairs. Through the gardens whispering at her to come and have a seat in them. It was unnerving how easily she found her way around the cursed place already, a maze of corridors and rooms that had etched itself into her unwelcoming brain – past the heavily perfumed gateway that led to the bathhouses, then down again, closer and closer to the main gate of the castle.

Out. Finally.

The relief of freedom did not come.

Why, for hell’s sake? Shehatedthis place. She’d wanted to leave from the moment she arrived, and at the very least that was finally happening – so why did it feel as though she was losing something with every step closer to her goal? There was little the Crimson Court had that she couldn’t find elsewhere, except perhaps—

The Labyrinth.

And Thysandra, a vicious little voice whispered in the back of her mind. She wiped that thought away. She was a demon, after all. Shedid not stick around for what no longer served her. She was selfish and she did not care, and since Thysandra had hurt her by—

By accusing her of not caring?